Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

California Judge Refuses DA Request to Set Execution Date

A condemned San Mateo County
killer will have to wait his turn for execution with the rest of
California's 725 death row inmates.

A judge on Monday refused San
Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe's bid to accelerate the
execution timetable for Robert Green Fairbank, on death row for the 1985
murder of a San Francisco woman. Fairbank has exhausted all of his
legal appeals, but executions remain on hold in California as a result
of state and federal court orders in challenges to the state's lethal
injection method.

Without any elaboration, Superior Court Judge
Barbara Mallach found she did not have the authority to interfere with
those court orders.

As a result, Mallach rejected Wagstaffe's
argument that Fairbanks could immediately be given an execution date
with instructions to put him to death with a single lethal drug,
bypassing the other courts. A Los Angeles judge this fall rejected the
same argument in a case brought by Los Angeles District Attorney Steve
Cooley, who was seeking execution dates for two death row inmates.

Wagstaffe
said the decision did not come as a surprise, but he considered the
legal maneuver an important step in getting executions back on track in
California.

And:

Fairbank is one of at least 13 inmates who
would be eligible for execution dates if the lethal injection challenges
are resolved, which is unlikely to happen until next year or later.

A San Mateo County Superior Court judge Monday refused to set an
execution date for a condemned inmate whose appeals have expired, saying
she did not have authority to override other courts wrangling with
questions over lethal injection.

Judge Barbara Mallach did not elaborate on her decision but the
ruling rendered moot any further discussion yesterday on whether the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is able to use a
single-drug method rather than the controversial three-drug protocol
that has essentially put executions on hold.

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.